Now, they say it's harder to find a frontline starting pitcher than, say, a third baseman. But is that true?

We all know the Dodgers are in desperate need of a third baseman in the minors, but it's foolish to draft for need in the MLB Draft. However, as was pointed out to me on the Scout.com Dodger Message Board, it's hard to find a quality third baseman if a team doesn't:

Nearly two-thirds (19/30) of all starting third basemen in the majors were drafted in the first three rounds or were signed as international free agents.

With every rule comes an exception. David Freese (ninth round), Mark Reynolds (16th) and Kevin Youkilis (eighth round) were later selections who have made an impact in the majors. Reynolds not so much, but he still hit 44 home runs in a season.

And it doesn't stop at current major leaguers. There are a ton of quality prospects who were either drafted high or signed as either undrafted or international free agents.

Of the 30 teams in baseball, just five do not have a third baseman ranked in their Top 10 (according to Baseball America's rankings). There are 29 third basemen ranked in a team's Top 10 among all 30 teams.Of the 29, 13 were first-round picks, including supplemental first-round selections. Ten of the 29 were undrafted or international free agents.

So, 23 of the 29 (79.3 percent) were either first-round picks or signed outside the draft. The Dodgers have none neither of these things in recent years, hence the lack of quality third base prospects.

As it stands right now, guys like Pedro Baez and Alex Santana are the Dodgers' best third base prospects. Baez was an international signing and Santana was a second-round pick. Baez hasn't panned out (though, he's playing decent ball this season) and Santana is 18 years old -- many, many years from contributing.

With third base deep in this year's draft, the Dodgers could be in a position to upgrade the position rather quickly. It obviously pays off to draft third basemen early in the draft. A lot of them pan out, even if some don't (Stewart) or haven't yet (Alvarez, Chisenhall).

With the draft three days away, the Dodgers are going to have decisions to make. Whoever they draft now won't be able to help for a couple years (at the soonest), and they certainly don't want to reach for a third baseman for the sake of drafting a third baseman. But if a guy like Richie Shaffer is available at No. 18, there probably won't be many better players available at the pick